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Please note: This page is currently no longer relevant and existed when Wyngro was a actively run community for artists!

It exists as an old space you can visit, but no longer functions in the same way. Thank you for understanding.

Polished Piece Guide!

When Wyngro requires a “Polished Piece”, what we mean is that the image has to be of a somewhat high quality. This can vary from artist to artist, so in order to help narrow it down to a formula, we’ve put together this helpful guide for you!

 

We like to see members put in effort in all of their work, but we understand the need to be lazy sometimes as well. Just make sure that when trying to complete images for certain needs, you are adhering to the “Polished Piece” guidelines! Otherwise you may not get accepted!

What is a polished piece?​

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A Polished Piece is essentially a "scene" image. Here's some bullet points on how to classify it:

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  • Drawing a character's entire body

  • Detailed shading/highlights

  • Adding in a background

  • Adding in a foreground

  • Using a dynamic poses / angles

  • Additional characters & interactions

  • Using an interesting composition/frame

  • Refined, clean lines and colors

  • comic panels / Animations

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What are Polished Pieces used for?

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  • Independent Magic

  • Magic Class

  • Breeding Images

  • & Most Events

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Polished Piece Requirements & Extras

Below are the requirements that EVERY drawing needs as a baseline to be even considered as a Polished Piece. However, only doing the minimal requirements does NOT guarantee your Polished Piece will be acceptable, so make sure to add as many Extras as you feel your drawing needs to assure that your Polished Piece passes. 

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As a good RULE OF THUMB: Make sure all required aspects on the left are met, while picking at least 1 extra on the right. 

Required

  • When using linework, it must be fairly clean and easy to see.

  • Must be fully colored

  • Must have at least one visible layer of shading

  • No transparent / floating characters.

  • Must have some kind of background. (No solid colors)


Important note on SHADING: Make sure your shading is clear and easy to identify. If it's too soft, gradient, fuzzy, or light, it will not be counted! (We recommend celshading!)

Extras

  • Several layers of shading and/or highlights.

  • Multiple characters

  • Detailed background, mid-ground, and/or foreground.

  • Comic! (Multiple frames)

  • Animation

  • Dynamic posing/angles

  • Drawing the characters entire body (or most of it)

  • Different styles such as lineless, limited pallets, traditional pieces, etc.

  • Extreme detail, such a painterly styles and rendering.

Magic Homework & Deadlines: To guarantee your art passing for all 4 weeks, we highly discourage experimenting with different mediums if you're not fully comfortable about them passing while trying to meet a deadline. 

We also discourage traditional art entries if you are unsure, as those are harder to edit!

Example guide!

You’ve drawn a picture, but it’s not considered a “polished piece”! Hmm, let’s take a look and see what we can do.

Refining things!

Say this is for learning independant magic. Oh how cute! Looks like you drew your wyngro and colored it! Nice! But why isn’t this a “polished piece”, exactly?

 

  • Transparent image, no background

  • Not fullbody

  • “Floating” headshot/bust. Incomplete looking.

  • No shading/highlights

  • Very unrefined: lines are not connected or cropped, making it appear sloppy and thrown together.

  • Only one image. (No comic or story added)

  • Nothing involved. The character is very static and it’s hard to tell what’s going on with them. They don’t seem involved with any kind of scene. 

 

Now that we’ve discussed all the reasons why not, let’s look at what we can add to get this acceptable!

Refining!

Ohhh-- much nicer! You cleaned up the lines, connected them more, added some line depth under the chin, and cropped the lines so they’re nice and tapered off! You also drew the body so it’s not floating and feels more like it’s in a scene.

 

It looks more completed, don’t you think? But it’s far from being considered a “polished piece”, so let’s see what else we could add.

 

Since the focus is more on the character condensing water with magic, a full body doesn’t seen like a good solution. How about we add a background?

Background / Foreground 

Oooo nice background! You’ve added a sky and some clouds! But it seems a bit plain still, doesn’t it? The background certainly seems like it could use a bit more love, but what about the other parts of your scene?  A foreground and midground would definitely help show where the character is and what they're doing.  Let's take a look at the difference between these elements.

What's the Difference?

Midground

The plain in which your character is on top of. The ground or floor they’re standing on. The space that is the closest to them. Perspective can alter this of course, but let’s start small and look at the very basic example above.

Background

The stuff behind your character, or main point of focus in an image. Here’s a very simplistic, gradeschool look at a background: a blue sky with a sun and clouds. Cool. But it still feels sort of flat, doesn’t it?  

Foreground

The foreground are the elements in front of your character that overlap the rest of the scene. See how adding in these background pieces really make the scene come together?

Composition:

This image is so centered on the character, that there isn’t really any room to add any foreground elements or details about where they are. So we have a couple different options:

 

  1. Detail what you have

  2. Expand the canvas to allow more details

Detail what you have:

In order to make the image less flat, sometimes adding some layers of shading and highlights can help! It certainly did for this character! Using shading is a great way to make them look more involved in a picture. Learning HOW to shade is a tutorial on its own, so do your best to find tutorials that explain it and give it a try!

A Note on Shading:

We often see members adding a simple overlay as their layer of shading in a piece, or perhaps simply making the lines too soft to define. To help you all out we have this handy visual example for you to refer back to!

Expanding the canvas:

Expanding the canvas can give you so many more options! Like adding in additional elements or even characters!

Let's see!

Additional characters can really give a piece more life then with just one character!

Adding a background/foreground can really help feel like your character is living it its own world!

Polished Piece Art 1.png

Or how about both!

Now the scene is looking much more complete! You’ve added several different layers of background here. The trees, then a lake behind it, then some grass, more trees, and rolling hills all on top of that cloudy sky!

 

Along with some other characters added in, there feels to be more going on, and the viewer can image more of a story/interaction happening here.

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If you’re not sure where to take your image, feel free to use our Discord channel as a resource to get more feedback! We're always happy to help!

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